Ok I just uploaded version 0.1.5 of the beta, which adds canfield, fixes a bunch of small bugs and tries to make spider work a bit better. Spider will now use tighter spacing if there are more than 10 cards. This isn't ideal, but it may be enough to make the game playable. If you have any suggestions for improving it please let me know. (Oh and spider does some auto play now.)

I've been trying very hard today to figure out how to implement yukon, and so far I haven't come up with a solution. The problem is that yukon allows you to move any card (and the cards on top of it) which means that dragging one stack to another is ambiguous. I can't come up with a good way to do that on such a small screen. The only thing I can think of is to pop up a dialog asking you which card you want to move.

I can use a custom palm dialog, which would show all the cards in that stack asking you to select one (and a cancel button). I'm not in love with this though...

For Yukon, could you follow the same basic gist of your dragging now and have it figure out that if you dragging to a 9 for example, it moves the 8 and below. The only question would be what to do if there is more than one 8. Then you may need to have a dialog box popup.

Meanwhile, in Golf, I hit a stats issue. I won the game and it shows a winning time, but it shows no wins. Screenshot attached.

For Yukon, could you follow the same basic gist of your dragging now and have it figure out that if you dragging to a 9 for example, it moves the 8 and below. The only question would be what to do if there is more than one 8. Then you may need to have a dialog box popup.

Thats exactly what I was thinking. It would only show the dialog if it needs to. I'll have to play with it a bit. It may be a bit complex to implement. I'm thinking that the dialog will show the options side by side. So for example (ignoring suit) if are dragging from '39374' to 'A2' the dialog may look something like:

Code:

A A
2 2
3 3
9 7
3 4
7
4

So basically it would show the stack being drug to, and the cards being drug to it offset slightly. Just tapping on one of the stacks would perform that move.

So Yukon builds tableaus down by alternating colors, meaning that there are at most 2 possible plays. The exception would be an empty tableau which can have any king played into it, so 4 options. Even with 4 options I think there will be plenty of room.

Originally Posted by mmeltser

Meanwhile, in Golf, I hit a stats issue. I won the game and it shows a winning time, but it shows no wins. I'll upload the screenshot once I'm back at my pc.

Thanks I appreciate it. I need to spend a bit of time with stats. I noticed that the move count in golf and klondike is off. Some actions aren't being counted right.

Screen shot attached to above post for your debugging pleasure! :-) By the way, I've just got to mention this program is really shaping up nicely. I think you've got potential to be one of, if not the, premiere card game for the Pre. Appreciate you taking time to seek user's input to to produce a high quality first release.

Screen shot attached to above post for your debugging pleasure! :-) By the way, I've just got to mention this program is really shaping up nicely. I think you've got potential to be one of, if not the, premiere card game for the Pre. Appreciate you taking time to seek user's input to to produce a high quality first release.

Thanks! I'm glad you appreciate it. I absolutely love web os and the pre, both as a user and a developer. This project has been insane amounts of fun. I'm very glad to hear that the work is appreciated.

Grr, I really wish palm updated the "hot apps" leader board over the weekends. Last they updated (thursday night) they listed 18,073 downloads as the threshold for being on the leader board. Freecell is now at 18,343!!! Other apps may have had a lot of recent downloads as well, so I may not have made it on there, but still I'm excited.

I'd love to get my hands on the Canfield, but didn't have my computer with the SDK booted up this weekend. But, not sure that would have mattered as 0.1.5 was expired when I downloaded from the app catalog this AM. Hopefully 0.1.6 has a more generous expiration date(?).

BTW, is there an update to the freecell 1.5.0 in the works soon to fix the timer bug? I'm getting a non-starting timer most of the time when I play it. Let me know if you need more details, but it sounded like you had a fix.

Regards,
Tom
[and just after I posted this, I see 0.1.6 is out -- Canfield is seeming fairly buggy, but I'll try to give some feedback in a bit....]

It was a bit buggy getting started -- didn't seem to deal correctly, the tops of the tableaus didn't fill in, auto play wasn't happening, etc. But once it had a game under it's belt, it started to work more smoothly, and subsequent games now deal out correctly, and autoplay has been fine.

The player needs to be reminded somehow of what card number goes into the top home spaces. Once you start placing cards up there, and cover up the original card, there's no way to know. Perhaps a grayed out version of the card that should go there.

I like how dealing three cards from the deck is animated, but it would be nice if it dealt faster.

This game in particular has a decidedly "left-handedness" to it. If I were a lefty that'd be awesome, but I'm not. Any chance you could make a right-handed flavor? (i.e. card deck and free card stack on right side of screen, home row and tableaus on left)

Otherwise, lookin' sweet (as I've come to expect!) -- more as it develops....

It was a bit buggy getting started -- didn't seem to deal correctly, the tops of the tableaus didn't fill in, auto play wasn't happening, etc. But once it had a game under it's belt, it started to work more smoothly, and subsequent games now deal out correctly, and autoplay has been fine.

Odd, I'll have to wipe my history and try dealing fresh and see if I can reproduce the problem. I haven't run into that, but I am rarely testing on a fresh machine.

Originally Posted by TomJ

The player needs to be reminded somehow of what card number goes into the top home spaces. Once you start placing cards up there, and cover up the original card, there's no way to know. Perhaps a grayed out version of the card that should go there.

I'm worried that a greyed out card may be confusing. The player may think it is part of the playing field. Like they are supposed to drag cards there or something...

Or do you mean that the foundations themselves should show the rank while they are empty? That is pretty easy to do, but after all 4 are filled it would be hidden again. I can show the rank in the status text at the bottom of the screen easily enough though.

Originally Posted by TomJ

I like how dealing three cards from the deck is animated, but it would be nice if it dealt faster.

The dealing is identical to the dealing in klondike. Is it a problem there as well? Or is the game play different enough in canfield that you want it to behave differently?

Originally Posted by TomJ

This game in particular has a decidedly "left-handedness" to it. If I were a lefty that'd be awesome, but I'm not. Any chance you could make a right-handed flavor? (i.e. card deck and free card stack on right side of screen, home row and tableaus on left)

Thats an interesting idea. I hadn't thought about that, but I most of the standard layouts have the deck on the left. I could add an option to preferences to let people set where they
prefer the deck. It is a pretty simple change to move them around. I just don't know what to make the default.

I'm thinking I'll add an option called "layout" with a default option of "Standard" that uses a layout that is as close to "normal" as possible, and another option called "Right handled" that moves the deck to the right (and waste etc depending on the game).

I wonder though how much it matters. I mean in some games that are really popular such as klondike and freecell people tend to expect a layout, but would changing it around really matter? I know that when I first suggested my funky horizontal layout for freecell a lot of people seemed to really dislike the idea, but I think once they played it most people ended up liking the layout.... I personally prefer optimizing the layout for the device as much as possible, but if it confuses people then I've gone too far.

Originally Posted by TomJ

Otherwise, lookin' sweet (as I've come to expect!) -- more as it develops....

Or do you mean that the foundations themselves should show the rank while they are empty? That is pretty easy to do, but after all 4 are filled it would be hidden again.

Yeah, that's what I mean. And, once they're filled in, it doesn't matter, because now you know what card comes next.

Originally Posted by minego

The dealing is identical to the dealing in klondike. Is it a problem there as well? Or is the game play different enough in canfield that you want it to behave differently?

This is a general comment for all such games, but I noticed it specifically playing Canfield (haven't played much Klondike).

Originally Posted by minego

Thats an interesting idea. I hadn't thought about that, but I most of the standard layouts have the deck on the left. I could add an option to preferences to let people set where they
prefer the deck. It is a pretty simple change to move them around. I just don't know what to make the default.

I guess I'm biased by the fact that the version I played on my Palm Tx had the deck on the right (see post #127 this thread). If I try to play Canfield one-handed here, my thumb is constantly covering the screen, as most of the time I'm tapping the deck.

But I see what you mean about user expectations. Even I would find it odd in Klondike if the deck were on the right, but I think the user is going to be tapping the deck just as much.

So, is the deck on the left just as standard in Canfield, even though it was on the right for the version on my Tx? (I'm guessing yes.)

There may be value in offering the option as you suggest, for folks to optimize one-handed play. You could offer the option for each game that seems like it could benefit from an altered layout for right- vs. left-handed play. I'd suggest doing it on a game-by-game basis, since some people may not want all games to stray from "standard" layout, even if it's more playable for their handedness.